(NewsNation) —The city of Los Angeles pushed back against an anticamping order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom by passing an ordinance this week saying its jails won’t be used to house people removed from homeless encampments.
Newsom ordered state agencies to begin clearing out homeless encampments on state land last week following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public.
However, Los Angeles city officials said the move went against their “care-first” approach, and the city board passed a motion Tuesday affirming that people in encampments cannot be put in jails, reported the Los Angeles Times.
“Just by sweeping people off the streets off sidewalks and putting them in jail is not going to settle this issue,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said, according to the outlet.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned Newsom’s decision last week, saying removing encampments would criminalize homeless people without getting to the root problem of homelessness.
The ordinance was also backed by by Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, who said he would not arrest anyone for being unhoused.
“Being homeless is not a crime, and we will maintain our focus on criminal behavior rather than an individual’s status,” he said.
The Supreme Court’s June decision reversed a ruling from a California-based appeals court that found such laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment, given shelter space limitations.
However, California’s Democratic governor said the decision gave state and local officials the authority to clear “unsafe encampments” from the streets while acting with compassion.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the county does not have the infrastructure to deal with the aftermath of Newsom’s order.
“What will it take to build up capacity to actually address the encampment situation front and center? And we don’t have an answer,” Barger said, according to KNBC. “And the question is, what is it going to cost? We don’t have an answer.”
Newsom’s order doesn’t explicitly say where people living in encampments should go once they receive a notice to vacate. The governor encouraged local governments to prioritize offering shelter and services, but critics pointed to a lack of resources.
“There is nowhere for Los Angeles’ 75,000 unhoused people to go,” Garrett Miller, L.A. County Public Defenders Union president, said in an official statement. “Arresting people for being homeless does nothing to solve the problem and only serves to accelerate mass incarceration.”
NewsNation’s Katie Smith contributed to this story.
